u/zarkside

app link: https://apps.apple.com/app/witbound/id6795587495

i listen to the audiobook on the commute and read the ebook at night, and every switch meant losing my place. witbound pairs your own ebook with its audiobook and lights up each word as the narrator reads it. tap any word and the audio jumps there.

- the page is your actual epub — real spelling, real names, the illustrations too. even maps and diagrams are still shown. my longest test was a 37 hour audiobook and the highlight stayed on the word.

- no ebook? audio only works — witbound writes the book from the narration, chapter by chapter, and reads along with itself.

- audiobookshelf — connect your server, browse your library and pair audiobooks with their ebooks.

- saved passages keep their narrator — press and hold a line to save it, the words plus the narrator reading them. send it to obsidian or your book club's discord.

- made for the last hour of the day — sleep timer, paper, sepia and night themes, reading streaks and stats.

- privacy — no account, no ads. the app store privacy label says data not collected.

iphone and ipad. honest feedback welcome, ill answer anything. link in the first comment.

Building a discord community too, feel free to join it!: https://discord.gg/cKbUWmKKA

I love audiobooks but my mind wanders constantly. I'd surface three pages later with no idea what I missed. Turns out it was never a focus thing, audiobooks just give your eyes nothing to do.

So I built Witbound. It syncs the audiobooks and ebooks you already own, so every word lights up exactly as the narrator says it. Your eyes and ears finally do the same thing.

A few things I cared about:

- It's all on-device. Your files never leave your phone, no account, nothing collected.

- It works with the books you actually own (epub, pdf, m4b, mp3), and it connects to your Audiobookshelf server if you self-host.

- No subscription. You pay once and keep it.

People with ADHD and dyslexia have told me it's the first time reading and listening clicked together for them, which honestly made the whole thing worth it.

It's live on the App Store, free to try (it works on the built-in sample book without buying anything): https://apps.apple.com/app/id6795587495

I'm a solo dev, so I'd genuinely love feedback, what's confusing, what's missing, what would actually make you use it. Roast it if you want.

I had great feedback from my last post and valid criticism.

If this is your first time seeing this, its ios app that syncs your actual EPUB to its M4B audiobook, so the text highlights word by word as the narrator reads.

https://apps.apple.com/app/witbound/id6795587495

ill be upfront, this is for a specific kind of listener. if you happily listen with your eyes shut this isnt for you. but if your mind wanders and you keep rewinding the same chapter, or you liked audibles immersion reading but you keep your own files, might be worth a look.

you add an ebook and its audiobook and it lines them up so each word lights up as the narrator reads it. tap a word to jump the audio there. its the real narrator you already paid for and the text on screen is your actual ebook, not a machine transcription. its on ios. id like feedback from people who actually care about narration. does this fit how you listen, and whats missing

its live on ios if you want to poke at it, feedback welcome, especially the harsh kind: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6795587495

I listen to audiobooks constantly and always wanted the Kindle immersion reading thing where the text lights up while the narrator reads. But everything that does it locks you into their store. I own my files, mostly epubs with matching m4bs, and nothing would sync them.

So I spent this year building it. It's called Witbound (witbound.app). You load an ebook and its audiobook, it aligns them on the device, and then it highlights each word as the narrator says it. No account, no server, nothing leaves your phone. The App Store privacy label literally says "Data Not Collected" because there's nothing to collect. Works fully offline.

For the curious, the alignment happens entirely on the phone. It runs the audiobook through on device speech recognition, matches the output against the ebook text, and builds the word timings from that. First import of a long book takes a few minutes, after that it opens instantly. Epub with m4b or mp3 is the happy path.

Heads up that it needs iOS 26, the word sync uses the newer on device speech stuff. It's the first app I've ever shipped and it's just me, so if you try it and something breaks with your files, tell me what happened and I'll actually fix it.

More at witbound.app if you want to see it in action before downloading.

Edit: You can share directly to your obsidian vault and a discord webhook. The discord webhook will also share the audioclip and text of the part you highlighted. Great for things like book clubs.

Edit: You can now link your Audiobookshelf server to Witbound.